The women in my portrait series are not models. They are a former neighbor, a barista I talked to for twenty minutes before asking if she would sit for me, a friend's mother, someone I met at a farmers market. None of them had professional headshots before working with me, and most had never been photographed with any real intention at all. That is the entire point of this approach to humanist portrait photography: the idealisation I am after is not about symmetry or polish, it is about presence.
Why Not Professional Models
Professional models are trained to perform a version of themselves for the camera, and that performance, however skilled, is exactly what I am trying to avoid. A model knows her angles before I have even raised the camera. A woman who has never been photographed this way does not know she has angles at all, and that unfamiliarity produces something a trained pose cannot: a face still figuring out what it feels like to be looked at closely. That uncertainty, held for even a second, is often the most honest expression in the entire session.
How I Find Subjects
Casting for this series happens almost entirely outside of any formal process. There is no call sheet or agency involved. Instead:
I approach people directly, in person, after noticing something specific, a way someone holds a conversation, laughs, or simply stands, rather than a generic sense that they would "photograph well"
I explain the project honestly before ever mentioning a camera, so the person understands they are being asked to participate in an idea, not just pose for a photo
I give people the option to see and approve images before anything is shared publicly, which builds trust that a one-time professional shoot rarely has time to establish
I return to the same people more than once when the first session produces a real connection, since familiarity often produces better work than a first meeting ever could
This slower, more personal casting process means the series grows at the pace of real relationships rather than a production schedule, but I have never wanted it to move faster than that.
A Humanist Idealisation, Not a Commercial One
Idealising a subject does not have to mean flattening her into a commercial standard of beauty. The humanist tradition this work draws from, closer to Renaissance portraiture than to advertising, treats idealisation as a form of attention: dignifying someone by looking at them carefully enough to notice what makes them specific. A woman's hands, the particular way light catches a scar or a laugh line, the tilt of her head when she is genuinely comfortable rather than posed, these are the details a professional casting process tends to smooth away and that this project is built to preserve.
What Changes When the Subject Is a Stranger
Working with someone I have just met changes the entire rhythm of a session. There is no shorthand, no established comfort, so the first fifteen minutes are almost always spent talking rather than shooting. I ask about her day, her work, anything unrelated to the photograph itself, until the conversation itself becomes the warm-up. By the time the camera comes up in earnest, the stiffness that shows up in almost every first frame has usually already passed.
The Trust This Series Depends On
None of this works without real consent and real comfort. Every woman who has sat for this series has known exactly how the photographs would be used before I made a single frame, and every one of them has had the final say over what gets shared. Austin Ryan's entire portrait practice depends on that agreement being real rather than assumed, especially when the subject has no professional experience to fall back on for how a shoot like this is supposed to feel.
What This Approach Costs in Efficiency
I will be honest that this method is slower and less predictable than working with professional models. Some coffee shop conversations never turn into a session at all, and some sessions with willing subjects simply do not produce a strong image, which is a risk a paid booking rarely carries. I have made peace with that inefficiency because the alternative, a faster and more reliable process built around trained subjects, would produce a completely different body of work, one closer to commercial portraiture than to the humanist tradition I am actually trying to continue.
If You Would Like to Sit for This Series
This ongoing project is always looking for its next subject, and you do not need any modeling experience to be considered. If something about this approach resonates with you, or you know someone whose presence deserves this kind of attention, reach out and let's talk about what a session would look like.
Photo: Aaron Stidwell (CC BY 2.0)
